New Orleans Weather Doppler Radar & Satellite Images

SEEKING SHELTER

North Carolina officials had expected to shut down their temporary housing program after 18 months, but 33 months later, there are nearly 70 families still living in temporary housing, such as here in Princeville, N.C.(PHOTO BY ELLIS LUCIA / The Times-Picayune)

After Hurricane Floyd inundated parts of North Carolina in 1999, thousands were left homeless. Today, nearly three years later, some people are still living in temporary trailers.

By John McQuaid Staff writer

ROCKY MOUNT, N.C. -- Griffin Clark's string of bad luck began when Hurricane Floyd flooded her out of her apartment in a small public housing development in Tarboro, N.C. Then an old foot injury acted up and she had to get orthopedic surgery. Unable to work for a time, she lost her job at an auto parts plant. Unable to pay the bills, she filed for bankruptcy. Amid the problems, she was unable to find a new place to live.

So for two years -- long after Floyd had become just an unpleasant memory for most people -- she stayed in a mobile home provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for storm refugees in Rocky Mount, about 20 miles west of Tarboro.

"It's not much, but it's home," she said, sitting on a couch and looking down at the tattered carpeting in the living room one day in November. "It's been rough being so far from my real home, my friends. I've been trying to get out, rent an apartment back in Tarboro. But there's no place to get out to."

Clark finally moved out in March, 30 months after the hurricane struck. With help from a federal relief program, she bought one of the used FEMA mobile homes on a plot in a park once used for storm refugees, now converted to private use, just outside of Tarboro.

When a disaster wrecks homes, the federal government steps in with temporary housing, considered a last resort for those who cannot find anywhere else to stay. The idea is to provide basic shelter until homes can be repaired or rebuilt. But when the damaged buildings are public housing units and rental apartments occupied by poor people, owners or agencies may be slow to rebuild. They may never come back at all. With nowhere else to go, people with few financial resources can end up in temporary housing for a very long time.

North Carolina's post-Floyd problems with poverty and temporary housing give a hint of what New Orleans could face on a much larger scale if a catastrophic storm swamps the city. North Carolina's experiences also provide a rough road map of what emergency managers here would have to do to address the needs of newly homeless residents.

Based on the North Carolina example, the state and federal governments would end up running what would be the largest public housing program in the nation's history, allocating money and other resources to maintain large trailer and mobile home parks while waiting for inexpensive, alternative housing to be rebuilt in the city. That might not take place for years, if it occurs at all.

North Carolina's temporary housing program was supposed to shut down after 18 months. But it was extended twice, and 33 months later it is still operating after a second deadline expired. Officials had whittled the numbers down to 69 families at the start of June, and they are hoping to end the program this summer.